Oh that some friendly hand its aid would lend,
My body from this rock's vast height to send
Into the briny deep! I'm all on fire,
And by this fatal wound must soon expire.

It is hard to say that the man who was obliged to cry out in this
manner was not oppressed with evil, and great evil too.

VIII. But let us observe Hercules himself, who was subdued by pain at
the very time when he was on the point of attaining immortality by
death. What words does Sophocles here put in his mouth, in his
Trachiniæ? who, when Deianira had put upon him a tunic dyed in the
centaur's blood, and it stuck to his entrails, says,

What tortures I endure no words can tell,
Far greater these, than those which erst befell
From the dire terror of thy consort, Jove--
E'en stern Eurystheus' dire command above;
This of thy daughter, Oeneus, is the fruit,
Beguiling me with her envenom'd suit,
Whose close embrace doth on my entrails prey,
Consuming life; my lungs forbid to play;
The blood forsakes my veins; my manly heart
Forgets to beat; enervated, each part
Neglects its office, while my fatal doom
Proceeds ignobly from the weaver's loom.
The hand of foe ne'er hurt me, nor the fierce
Giant issuing from his parent earth.
Ne'er could the Centaur such a blow enforce,
No barbarous foe, nor all the Grecian force;